What is Fluent Bit?
Fluent Bit is a Fast and Lightweight Log Processor and Forwarder. It has been made with a strong focus on performance to allow the collection of events from different sources without complexity.
Overview of Fluent Bit Trademarks: This software listing is packaged by Bitnami. The respective trademarks mentioned in the offering are owned by the respective companies, and use of them does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.
TL;DR
docker run --name fluent-bit REGISTRY_NAME/bitnami/fluent-bit:latest
Why use Bitnami Images?
- Bitnami closely tracks upstream source changes and promptly publishes new versions of this image using our automated systems.
- With Bitnami images the latest bug fixes and features are available as soon as possible.
- Bitnami containers, virtual machines and cloud images use the same components and configuration approach - making it easy to switch between formats based on your project needs.
- All our images are based on minideb -a minimalist Debian based container image that gives you a small base container image and the familiarity of a leading Linux distribution- or scratch -an explicitly empty image-.
- All Bitnami images available in Docker Hub are signed with Notation. Check this post to know how to verify the integrity of the images.
- Bitnami container images are released on a regular basis with the latest distribution packages available.
Looking to use Fluent Bit in production? Try VMware Tanzu Application Catalog, the commercial edition of the Bitnami catalog.
Why use a non-root container?
Non-root container images add an extra layer of security and are generally recommended for production environments. However, because they run as a non-root user, privileged tasks are typically off-limits. Learn more about non-root containers in our docs.
Supported tags and respective Dockerfile links
Learn more about the Bitnami tagging policy and the difference between rolling tags and immutable tags in our documentation page.
You can see the equivalence between the different tags by taking a look at the tags-info.yaml file present in the branch folder, i.e bitnami/ASSET/BRANCH/DISTRO/tags-info.yaml.
Subscribe to project updates by watching the bitnami/containers GitHub repo.
Get this image
The recommended way to get the Bitnami Fluent Bit Docker Image is to pull the prebuilt image from the Docker Hub Registry.
docker pull REGISTRY_NAME/bitnami/fluent-bit:latest
To use a specific version, you can pull a versioned tag. You can view the list of available versions in the Docker Hub Registry.
docker pull REGISTRY_NAME/bitnami/fluent-bit:[TAG]
If you wish, you can also build the image yourself by cloning the repository, changing to the directory containing the Dockerfile and executing the docker build command. Remember to replace the APP, VERSION and OPERATING-SYSTEM path placeholders in the example command below with the correct values.
git clone https://github.com/bitnami/containers.git
cd bitnami/APP/VERSION/OPERATING-SYSTEM
docker build -t REGISTRY_NAME/bitnami/APP:latest .
Connecting to other containers
Using Docker container networking, a different server running inside a container can easily be accessed by your application containers and vice-versa.
Containers attached to the same network can communicate with each other using the container name as the hostname.
Using the Command Line
Step 1: Create a network
docker network create fluent-bit-network --driver bridge
Step 2: Launch the Fluent Bit container within your network
Use the --network <NETWORK> argument to the docker run command to attach the container to the fluent-bit-network network.
docker run --name fluent-bit-node1 --network fluent-bit-network REGISTRY_NAME/bitnami/fluent-bit:latest
Step 3: Run another container
We can launch another container using the same flag (--network NETWORK) in the docker run command. If you also set a name to your container, you will be able to use it as hostname in your network.
Using a Docker Compose file
When not specified, Docker Compose automatically sets up a new network and attaches all deployed services to that network. However, we will explicitly define a new bridge network named app-tier. In this example we assume that you want to connect to the Fluent Bit log processor from your own custom application image which is identified in the following snippet by the service name myapp.
version: '2'
networks:
app-tier:
driver: bridge
services:
fluent-bit:
image: 'REGISTRY_NAME/bitnami/fluent-bit:latest'
networks:
- app-tier
myapp:
image: 'YOUR_APPLICATION_IMAGE'
networks:
- app-tier
IMPORTANT:
- Please update the YOUR_APPLICATION_IMAGE_ placeholder in the above snippet with your application image
- In your application container, use the hostname
fluent-bitto connect to the Fluent Bit log processor
Launch the containers using:
docker-compose up -d
Configuration
Fluent Bit is flexible enough to be configured either from the command line or through a configuration file. For production environments, Fluent Bit strongly recommends to use the configuration file approach.
Plugins
Fluent Bit supports multiple extensions via plugins.
Logging
The Bitnami fluent-bit Docker image sends the container logs to the stdout. To view the logs:
docker logs fluent-bit
You can configure the containers logging driver using the --log-driver option if you wish to consume the container logs differently. In the default configuration docker uses the json-file driver.
Using docker-compose.yaml
Please be aware this file has not undergone internal testing. Consequently, we advise its use exclusively for development or testing purposes. For production-ready deployments, we highly recommend utilizing its associated Bitnami Helm chart.
If you detect any issue in the docker-compose.yaml file, feel free to report it or contribute with a fix by following our Contributing Guidelines.
Contributing
We’d love for you to contribute to this container. You can request new features by creating an issue or submitting a pull request with your contribution.
Issues
If you encountered a problem running this container, you can file an issue. For us to provide better support, be sure to fill the issue template.
License
Copyright © 2025 Broadcom. The term “Broadcom” refers to Broadcom Inc. and/or its subsidiaries.
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the “License”); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an “AS IS” BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.
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